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New Englander Henry Knox gave his name to city, county

Knox County was formed in June 1792 by terrirtorial governor William Blount. Blount gave the county and its capital, created a year earlier, the name of his boss, a New England American Revolution War hero.

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New Englander Henry Knox gave his name to city, county

Henry Knox built the house he called Montpelier in Maine and moved there after he retired from public life.

William Blount was a smart politician, and he knew it was a good strategy to keep the boss happy.

It was 1792 in the young, raw pioneer city of Knoxville. Blount, a North Carolina native and signer of the U.S. Constitution, was territorial governor of the United States South of the River Ohio. President George Washington had appointed him to the post two years earlier. Knoxville, founded 225 years ago on Oct. 3, 1791, was the territorial capital.

Now it was time for Blount to create more local government. On June 11, 1792, he formed Knox County from parts of what had been Greene and Hawkins counties. Blount named the county Knox. The name fit well with that of its capital, Knoxville. But Blount didn't pick the moniker because it would be easy to remember.

Both the city of Knoxville and the county of Knox were named for Blount's boss, Gen. Henry Knox. A New Englander, Knox was a Revolutionary War hero and Secretary of War in President George Washington's first cabinet.

Blount was charged with organizing the territory's government. So when enough people moved to the area, he would establish counties. It was a time of growth, says Steve Cotham, collection manager for the Knox County Public Library's Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.

'The counties were evolving pretty quickly, and the settlers were coming in,' Cotham said. 'The goal (of creating the counties) was to ease the burden for people of the county to get to the county seat to file a will or a deed.' Before Knox County was established, people living in and around Knoxville had to travel to county seats in Rogersville and Greeneville.

The Knox County that Blount created was large, and parts were carved off through the years to help create surrounding counties. That first happened just two years after Knox County was created when a section was used to help create Sevier County.

In naming both a city and then a county for Henry Knox, Blount 'was flattering his boss,' Cotham said.

Though Knox didn't come near to his close friend George Washington in the number of locations named for him, he was repeatedly honored. Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio are among those named for Knox.

While Blount personally knew Knox, the native Bostonian never traveled so far west as to visit Tennessee's Knoxville or Knox County. But Knox and his story were likely well known to the people living here.

Before he was a hero in America's war for independence, Knox was a poor boy who became a successful businessman and a student of military tactics. When his father abandoned the family, the young Knox dropped out of school to help support his mother and siblings. He got work in a bookbindery and taught himself to read French and Latin. Eventually he saved enough money to start his own Boston book shop.

In the winter of 1775, the 25-year-old Knox volunteered to move 59 pieces of artillery from New York's Fort Ticonderoga to the outskirts of Boston. He made the offer to Gen. George Washington, who accepted the daring move. 'Washington figured, 'What have I got to lose?' ' said Matthew Hansbury, collections manager of the Knox Museum in Thomaston, Maine.

Knox and a younger brother positioned the cannon around Dorchester Heights. When the British saw all the artillery, 'they made a halfhearted attack and then retreated,' said Hansbury. 'It was a huge victory' for the colonists. Knox's move basically ended the British occupation of Boston's harbor.

Knox's action earned Washington's confidence. He moved up the military ranks, becoming chief artillery officer in the Continental Army and then a general in the Army. In 1785 he became one of Washington's four cabinet members as the United States' first Secretary of War.

'We refer to him as one of the forgotten Founding Fathers,' said Hansbury. 'He was one of two generals who served with Washington for the entire (Revolutionary) War. He was Washington's best friend and confidante during the war.'

Well-liked and gregarious, the 6-foot-3-inch, 300-pound Knox was 'very intelligent and apparently a pretty outgoing fellow,' said Cotham.

When Knox fell out with Washington in 1795, he retired from public life to his massive estate in Maine. He'd gotten that land because he'd married an heiress. He and wife Lucy built the home they named Montpelier. That house was demolished in 1876. The nearby Knox Museum is based on Montpelier.

Knox was 56 when he died in 1806. While the legend goes he choked on a chicken bone, that's not correct, Hansbury said. The general ingested a piece of chicken bone that punctured his intestines and brought on a fatal infection.

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